


Wide Awake

by By_Noa



Category: Titans (TV 2018)
Genre: Don't copy to another site, F/M, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-07
Updated: 2019-06-07
Packaged: 2020-04-12 06:55:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19126897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/By_Noa/pseuds/By_Noa
Summary: Dick's state of mind after Trigon's hold on him is broken.Post season 1 finale AU.





	Wide Awake

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr Prompt: Can I prompt hurt/comfort Dick story?

He has the chills. His muscles twitch painfully, clenching and unclenching as he struggles to right his breath, but no matter how hard he tries, he can’t stop shivering.

His mind is fogged like condensation on a mirror and he can’t make heads or tails of the voices in the room or the bodies moving around him, getting him unclothed. He groans and reaches out, and a hand, freezing cold, squeezes it gently before tucking it underneath a blanket.

His eyes close despite him pleading to stay awake, to stay free, but he’s sucked back into it, into the lie. Into Trigon’s fantasy.

His stomach coils tightly at the sight of curdled blood, frozen eyes and Trigon’s smile.

“Herh,” he jerks forward, and his heart is small and hard like a tight fist inside his chest, stiff and cracked from a beating, the pace jittery and stuttering. Every sound is too loud and the fresh morning light from the window attacks his eyes, stinging as though he’s using them for the first time. Trying to turn over in the bed, he winces and cups the gaping wound beside his navel as it stretches with him, burning anew.

He remembers Donna vaguely, the night before, hovering over him while she patched him up, running a hand over his forehead, grazing his cheek, but he couldn’t see or think, or be.

His breath quakes in his chest as the images broken up in pieces return to his thumping head, banging so hard inside his skull that tears blur his vision. It’s all his fault. All of it. Rachel. Trigon. Everything that went down in that house. He did it. Because he wasn’t strong enough, or smart enough. Because he’d ignored everything Bruce had taught him, out of panic, or adrenaline, maybe even spite, and it had cost him dearly.

Taking another shaky breath, he leans into the palm of his hands and pushes himself up, rebelling against his waning strength. Trigon really did a number on him, fucking with his mind and turning him against his friends, powerless over his own body, going and going, until they were forced to take him down. He has at least two cracked ribs, a sprained wrist and a busted nose, but it’s nothing compared to the guilt, and shame, and anger raging inside of him. Pain has been numbed down to the stubs by fear. Fear the others will never trust him again after this and why should they?

Muffled conversation bounces off the wall and he falls back when he can’t hold himself up any longer. He hears footsteps approaching, and turns too quickly, grimacing as his wound twists tight. The door swings open and he closes his eyes, swallowing hard. He can’t face them. Any of them, especially Kory.

“Dick?” Kory calls.

He tries steadying his breath, but the sound of her voice breaks him, and he presses against the wound until all he feels is warm wetness coating his fingers.

The bed slants under her weight as she sits down. “Dick,” she sighs. “You don’t have to say anything. What you've been through. I can’t even imagine.”

He presses his tongue to the roof of his mouth, tied in knots and tasting sour.

“None of this is your fault.” She whispers. “You should know that no one is blaming you for how things went down. We’re just all relieved we got you back and you’re okay.”

“I tried to kill you.” Dick chokes out. “I tried to kill all of you.”

His heart thumps inside his head, in his eardrum, hard and loud, and painfully. And he just wants the noise to stop.

“Dick, look at me.” Kory touches his shoulder and he instinctively flinches away. "He made you attack us. Dick?"

He almost got everyone killed because he rushed into that house half-cocked and went up against a demon, alone. “I’m fine.”

“No. Not even close.” Kory says, and the bed shifts again when she stands. “None of this is fine, Dick.”

He doesn’t want her to go, but he doesn’t deserve for her to stay because he failed them. Horribly.

“You’re bleeding,” she leans over and pinches the bandage, and he leans away from her touch. “You need another bandage.”

“Kory,” Dick’s voice breaks, as though he’s using it for the first time. “Tell them m’sorry.” he mutters.

Kory sighs and her shoulders sag. “I’ll be right back.”

Later, when the wound is clean and the bandage is fresh. Once the inky black sky has bled into the pinks, oranges and yellows, Kory settles at the edge of the bed. “She wants to see you. Rachel.” She takes a beat. “Gar too.”

“Not yet.” Dick forces out. “Not like this.”

“When are you going to realize that you can’t do this alone.” she leans forward, but he doesn’t meet her eyes. “We need each other. I need-,”

Dick swallows. He arches his back, careful not to irritate his ribs and settles back. This pain. These cracked bones are nothing compared to what facing Rachel will do to him. Her mother is dead. “I can’t do this right now, Kory.”

“You can’t save everyone, Dick. Angela - she was too far gone. She would’ve sacrificed herself to save him no matter what you said or did. You’re not the reason he got away.”

“I know you’re trying to help.” His nose flares and his eyes fill with tears that he roughs away with the back of his hand. “But this is on me. I left you and Donna and I - I made all of you vulnerable to him. I did that. Not you or Donna, or the others.”

Kory’s frown is deep and her voice soft. “What did you see in that dream? What did he make you see?”

Dick sucks the air in greedily, and slowly breathes it back out. “I don’t know. Nothing. Something. Maybe everything.” His gaze falls on her. “You.”

Kory raises her eyebrows. “Me?”

Clenching his jaw tight, he drops his head, and swallows hard. “We have to find him before he snaps the world in half.”

“We will.” Kory reaches for his hand, and he doesn’t flinch this time. “Get some sleep first.”

He wants to hold onto her as she moves away, but he can’t, his fingers are weak and his body won’t move. Even now he has it back, it doesn’t feel like his. It’s like he’s looking in on someone else’s life, witnessing someone else’s memories and he almost wishes it were true, because it would mean the memory of trying to hurt his friends weren’t his either.

He has a scream trapped in his chest of pure rage and he wants nothing more than to swallow Trigon up in it until there is nothing left of him, but he is helpless. Fatigued. Split in half.

Every time he closes his eyes, he sees the same things; blood, frozen eyes and that smile.

“Kory, wait,” Dick calls out.

Kory steps back in. “What is it?”

Dick glances at her and then away, too ashamed - to selfishly need her when two days ago he was trying to hurt her. “I-I can’t sleep alone.”

After a brief pause, Kory closes the door behind her, flicking off the light, and he watches her silhouette in the dark as she steps out of her clothes. She tiptoes over to the bed and slides under the blanket with him, pulling him close. Her body is warm, warmer than the average body, and he needs this. He needs to know she’s there.

Kory wraps her arms around him, hugging his shoulder and presses small, kind, reassuring kisses there, and he lets go of a sigh of relief. A breath he’s been holding since he woke up free from Trigon’s influence because he was unsure what reality looked like now, and if Kory was in it.

But Kory is real. He can feel her. She isn’t a ghost in his head. She’s alive.

She smooths his hair away from his face and wraps her arm around his waist, pressing her face to his shoulder. “It’s okay,” she whispers into the dark. “I’m here.”

Dick closes his eyes, and sleeps.


End file.
